<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<title>The Proceedings at Hand by anomieow</title>
<style type="text/css">

body { background-color: #ffffff; }
.CI {
text-align:center;
margin-top:0px;
margin-bottom:0px;
padding:0px;
}
.center   {text-align: center;}
.cover    {text-align: center;}
.full     {width: 100%; }
.quarter  {width: 25%; }
.smcap    {font-variant: small-caps;}
.u        {text-decoration: underline;}
.bold     {font-weight: bold;}
</style>
</head>
<body>
<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25178122">The Proceedings at Hand</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow'>anomieow</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Terror (TV 2018)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Corsetry, Cucking, Dirty Talk, Humiliation kink, It’s a pretty fluffy fic, James In A Dress, M/M, Marking, Oral Sex, POV First Person, PWP, Rimming, Service Kink, Threesome, Voyeurism, just horny AF</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-07-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-07-22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 07:00:59</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Explicit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,745</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25178122</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anomieow/pseuds/anomieow</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>When we first began, I was naturally quite—nervous is too mild a word for it. I fancy myself generally a quite composed sort but my hands were all a-tremble and no matter how hard I tried it felt I could not fetch enough air into my lungs. My tongue felt sluggish and I did not know where to look, how to proceed—what to do with my hands once I’d clatteringly set the tea tray down. But then Fitzjames kissed me: a better ameliorant for nerves there surely never was. A flurry of delicate, chaste little kisses he gave me at first, though in their very lightness they were wickedly teasing until slightly maddened I took hold of his jaw and—insisted upon something more intimate. Only after I had licked his mouth open did it occur to me that I may have taken too much of a liberty, and, mortified, I attempted to break loose—to stammer an apology—but it was apparently not too grave a transgression for his own attentions rapidly grew more rapacious; his tongue’s ways as bold and intricate in deed as in speech.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Captain Francis Crozier/Commander James Fitzjames/Thomas Jopson</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>43</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>54</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>If I am honest I am rather a private man and so quite naturally I initially demurred from the captain’s proposal. He took great pains to assure me that both he and Commander Fitzjames were equally desirous of my participation but also stressed—laying his hand on my thigh (and being rather free with his thumb as he did so, sweeping pressing little semicircles close and closer to—) that said participation was not <i>ordered</i> of me as a steward but <i>asked</i> of me as a friend. I also desired to know why they would ask such a thing of me, the two of them seeming so raptly content with one another. </p><p>“Sir,” I asked him, “is this because of the time I listened in?” (One evening not long prior, you see, I was—well, and the floorboard creaked, and for a moment they went silent and still within, so naturally I assumed—)</p><p>He blinked blankly, flared his nostrils. “You have—spied on us?”</p><p>“Not spied, sir. I <i>saw</i> nothing. Only heard. And—was compelled to remain.” (This was true in reference to this instance; there might have been another instance whereupon finding the cabin door not securely closed I did peer around the corner and see—the captain in his chair, head thrown back and panting, and between his thighs a head of loose curls, shining and dark—<i>Christ,</i> he was babbling, <i>Christ, James, Christ Christ CHRIST,</i> Which I felt was perhaps an excess of Christs but nevertheless I must confess I watched, unseen, for some moments before my own sense of propriety returned—)</p><p>“What did you hear?”</p><p>“What do you think, sir?” I smiled at him then, willing myself to blush most charmingly. I could not summarize what I had heard, nor the response such—vocalizations provoked in my anatomy without risking the helpless recurrence of that same mortifying response. With his hand so near, his thumb, his intent gaze—</p><p>My blushing smile must have had the desired effect, for his face softened and after a moment he again spoke. “This has—nothing whatever to do with that. Had we known of your being so... compelled, we might have asked sooner, hmm?”</p><p>So that is how I came to be involved in the proceedings at hand; that is, how I came to find myself fulfilling the earnest desire of my beloved captain (to whom I am eternally and <i>in every way</i> devoted) to be cuckolded by an inferior in age and status. What funny ways do our perversities find to invert the order of things! These are not matters, to be sure, that I think much about, except to preserve order as much as I am able, but somehow the absurdity struck me then—just then, the delightful absurdity of it—knelt behind Fitzjames in the captain’s bed, Fitzjames looking somehow lovelier and more vernal in his gown than any woman I could at that moment recall, and I with my hand delving beneath the alice blue billowing of his skirts seeking the svelte heft of his cockstand—and our captain watching us with something akin to a beggar’s hunger in his eyes. </p><p>Unfortunately the only possible place we could proceed with our endeavor was in the captain’s bed, which provides, as can be imagined scarcely room for two, let alone three. ‘Twas a logistical morass for certain. How we wound up was, the commander and I took up the bed, at a diagonal somewhat, I up on my knees behind him—Commander Fitzjames I mean—with the door slid open. Captain Crozier’s chair just yon the threshold. (The captain, by his own edict, was obliged to stay in his chair, though at several key points during the—proceedings—he appeared poised to rise, leaning forward with a bodily intimation of intent not unlike a gentleman clearing his throat to make space for himself in a conversation. In these moments, it was my role to sternly remind him of his, that is, that of an impotent witness. But I get ahead of myself.)</p><p>When we first began, I was naturally quite—nervous is too mild a word for it. I fancy myself generally a quite composed sort but my hands were all a-tremble  and no matter how hard I tried it felt I could not fetch enough air into my lungs. My tongue felt sluggish and I did not know where to look, how to proceed—what to do with my hands once I’d clatteringly set the tea tray down. But then Fitzjames kissed me: a better ameliorant for nerves there surely never was. A flurry of delicate, chaste little kisses he gave me at first, though in their very lightness they were wickedly teasing until slightly maddened I took hold of his jaw and—insisted upon something more intimate.  Only after I had licked his mouth open did it occur to me that I may have taken too much of a liberty, and, mortified, I attempted to break loose—to stammer an apology—but it was apparently not too grave a transgression for his own attentions rapidly grew more rapacious; his tongue’s ways as bold and intricate in deed as in speech. </p><p>I was rather in a haze at this point but not so addled that I was not aware of Captain Crozier’s approach from behind. He laid his hands upon my hips, urging me forward against Fitzjames as he simultaneously fit himself nicely against me. He then commenced to kiss (a jot roughly for my taste but in a manner very <i>him</i>) the side of my neck as Fitzjames mouthed the curve of my throat. And it was bliss. Molten, witless bliss. Then, abruptly—</p><p>“Pardon, sirs,” I blurted, darting free. For I’d nearly, quite precipitously—I explained, apologizing over and again—I’d already very nearly reached my crisis. Mortified, I hurried to assure them that I was <i>in that matter</i> quite resilient, but nevertheless I was so sorry, so very sorry—</p><p>—at which point Fitzjames, face stern, raised a hand to silence me. “Firstly, Jopson, it would have been Francis’ fault, not yours.” I recognized in his rich voice a subtile archness and heaved a sigh of relief. “<i>He</i> is meant to keep his hands to himself.”</p><p>“My dear,” Crozier replied serenely, “I was merely trying to help the poor lad feel at ease.” I liked to hear him call Fitzjames ‘dear’—his brogue twined round the little word like a trellised vine.    “And why ever would you apologize for that? Why, if I had that gift of resiliency, I’d be day and night—“</p><p>“I’d have no reprieve,” Fitzjames remarked. Then, after a thoughtful pause he continued, “You display more stamina the second time through, I hope?”</p><p>“I do, sir. And yet more the third.”</p><p>They exchanged then a peculiar look, the meaning of which I could not discern. </p><p>“Let us have, then, the first one done with, mm?” Crozier spoke now. </p><p>Both gazed expectantly at me and as I squirmed beneath their eyes I could not help but admire, as I often did, the marked contrast between them and how said contrast enhanced the singular desirability of each. The captain I had long admired for his solidity of frame: his bones wore thick the rounded, indefatigable musculature of a pugilist; he was light of hair and his eyes flashed, at the whim of the light, any given shade along the entire spectrum of blue. Where Crozier was coarsely-built and fair, and his handsomeness an unorthodox one (some might even have deemed him homely, but no face so noble and beloved can be so, not this face worn smooth here and creased there and everywhere spilling an innate radiance like so much water from a pail—), Fitzjames was elegantly formed, possessed of a graceful leanness that complemented, at that precise moment, his skirts and corset; his shoulders and clavicle were bare and painted gold in the low light. His dark, clean hair shone also and I repressed a fleeting urge to stroke it. His long face imparted an impression of noble strength despite a decided delicacy of feature: his mouth was trim beneath a neatly pointed nose; his eyes, the color of coffee, were brilliantly expressive. </p><p>“James might...” Crozier gestured at his lover, whose eyes in that moment were deep with hunger.</p><p>“Service you,” he finished.</p><p>“Ah, sir, there’s no need—please. You mustn’t.” </p><p>“He is... quite good at it.”</p><p>“Exquisite, darling. I am exquisite.”</p><p>“Sir—sirs—I couldn’t—“</p><p>But Fitzjames’ skirts susurrated as he strode toward me and boldly cupped me, still half tumescent, in his palm. His gaze he fixed to mine with an intensity akin to severity as he spoke. “It would be my great pleasure, Mr. Jopson,” he said, his voice even more richly deep than usual. What else could I have done? It would’ve been a matter of grave disrespect to refuse a third time. And so I—not entirely displeased at this development—acquiesced, astounded at the sleek ease with which he sank onto his knees before me and undid the bindings of my trousers. I looked over at Crozier, who watched the proceedings at hand open-mouthed, soft-gazed. His breathing had grown harsh and shallow and in the candle light his eyes had darkened to the color of clouds low above a tossing sea—that is, a silver glinted through with light—but then I hadn’t the mental capacity to think of anything, for Fitzjames’ mouth was on me. It was a supple, velveteen warmth, reminiscent of nothing that I could recall except perhaps the man’s own voice. A lush immensity of bliss—I had to close my eyes for all its intensity.</p><p>“Look at him, Jopson,” I heard Crozier say, nay, order, as though from far away. “He wants you to see—how good he is.” </p><p>I opened my eyes to the vision of Fitzjames hollowing his cheeks around my length, his fingertips softly stroking my thighs. And then he did with his tongue something very wicked, which if I live to be one-hundred I shall never be able to describe nor replicate. “I’ll not last this way,” I stammered as he did it again—some kind of lithe little twist over the tip, this time in conjunction with the taking of my entire length into his throat.</p><p>“That’s the point, is it not?” Crozier asked teasingly. Then, in a hoarser tone, “How does he feel?” He had unlaced himself but sat with his fingers steepled at his chin, seemingly unaware of his own obscene state of undress. This vision, in conjunction with a pretty little moan along my prick—I glanced down again; Fitzjames eyes having sunk shut in ecstasy—</p><p>“Christ, sir, it’s—“ I managed before crying out and spending deep into Fitzjames’ gullet. My hands tangled in the loose waves of his hair, and I found it to my touch as soft and clean as I had always imagined. Fitzjames nuzzled the curve of his jaw into my palm (I felt the muscles of his throat knit together as he swallowed) like a solicitous house cat. And I closed my eyes, willing my heart to slow and my blood to still. I might have died then and been a content man.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Regarding the first chapter of this narrative, I flatter myself that I have adequately described the events and circumstances as they unfolded. But I am troubled by what seems now a glaring omission, that being—I failed to convey the profound impression made upon me by the vision of Commander Fitzjames in his gown. That he sometimes dressed as a woman was a secret between him and Crozier—and myself, I confess; I once found a ladies’ stocking in the coarse folds of Crozier’s bedding and knew it not to belong to him for it didn’t smell <i>only</i> of him. (Allow me to explain: it is <i>only natural</i> that a man in intimate service to another man comes to know that man’s smell; furthermore, if I am in the habit of sniffing Crozier’s clothing it is <i>only</i> in order to discern if it needs laundered.) Further, Crozier forewarned me that he might be thus arrayed, and advised me in a tone most threatening to forget the whole proposition altogether if I felt <i>any</i> alarm or disgust at the prospect. I certainly did not feel those things but was not prepared for what I <i>did</i> feel: I was felled by desire, by awe. I stepped around the corner of the dark wooden cabinet to find him seated at the edge of the cabin table, leaned back upon his locked arms with his bare feet resting upon the seat of Crozier’s chair, and I—my breath halted in my throat and my cheeks blazed. </p><p>Now, mind: Fitzjames is all man, and no lie. He does not wish to be a woman, nor does he pretend to be one, and yet... and yet—you must bear with me, for what I am about to describe defies what I hitherto believed about the difference between the coarser sex and the fairer, and it may be an affront to those to whom such rigid binaries are particularly meaningful. But what I mean to say is, in his dress—which I shall endeavor, in a moment, to describe in sufficient detail as befits it—he no longer seemed <i>merely</i> a man; nor yet did he seem a woman: he occupied, somehow, an exalted role between the two, inhabiting simultaneously the roles of both and, paradoxically, neither. As I have said, it is a vexing thing to articulate but I tell you with no misgiving whatever that as I kissed his hand with trembling lips I felt myself in the presence of a loveliness I did not understand.</p><p>The gown was of the palest blue, which accentuated the gleaming darkness of his hair and eyes. I said earlier that he was dressed as a lady for a ball, but this is not, strictly speaking, accurate, for he would’ve scandalized any ball he attended, and set an untold number of secret fires in thereafter conflicted hearts. For while his skirts were so bounteous as to verge on modesty, if for no other reason than that their mere volume made a comical farce out of getting beneath them, his slender torso was laced punishingly tight into a décolleté corset; the bertha neckline of the gown hanging low over the top of said corset, low enough that—and it was upon noticing <i>this</i> detail that my body found itself emptied of breath and language—his nipples were just visible behind the translucent lace. His feet were bare, delicate, pale—softer and cleaner than they had any right to be. He regarded me with a teasing haughtiness from beneath lowered lids as my lips brushed his knuckles. This effected in my flesh a most ardent stirring; I imagined in that moment kissing a path up those slender and strong arms, tracing with my lips that collarbone sublimely delineated as though carved from marble, mouthing my way toward those nipples peering impertinently out, my tongue—</p><p>“Isn’t he lovely?” Crozier murmured behind me. “I expect you to please him, and please him well,” he further admonished. </p><p>“How could he not?” Fitzjames asked, laying his hand on my arm. “I am pleased already. Just look at him, Francis. Have you truly never...?”</p><p>“Never,” Crozier answered, stepping toward us, “I did not think he would be amenable.”</p><p>“Well, Jopson?” There was a teasing glint in Fitzjames’ eye.</p><p>“Yes sir?”</p><p>“Are you <i>amenable</i>?”</p><p>I nodded, swallowed, gazed at the toes of my own boots. This was the point at which my nerves <i>and</i> the physical evidence of my <i>amenability</i> must have become apparent, for I found I could look neither man in the eye. This was when Fitzjames swept forward and kissed me. What transpired after I have already told. I was but momentarily sated by his virtuosic demonstration of skill—he had been correct when he referred to himself as <i>exquisite</i> and had earned each <i>Christ</i> Crozier had spoken that time I spied upon them, his tongue loosed and scattering sacrilege over the excruciating divinity of Fitzjames’ skill. </p><p>“All right there, Jopson?” Crozier said to me now, a rich and sly amusement in his tone. He helped Fitzjames up off of his knees and then—they kissed. Crozier did not demur in the least from the taste that must have been on Fitzjames’ tongue; he seemed, in fact, ardent for it. And so already again my prick began to stir, as though it had not just been sucked and caressed within an inch of its dear life—for truly, I believe now no sweet hereafter can offer anything half as divine as the wickedness of that man’s tongue. But now it was not any physical touch that so aroused me, nor was it the vision of them so deeply kissing—not... precisely. What so directed my blood was the idea that my beloved captain was, at that moment, tasting the briny remnants of my spend on his lover’s tongue—and was not repulsed. Wished for it, perhaps. I pondered briefly if by kissing Crozier I might taste myself thirdhand—an intriguing thought. </p><p>When Fitzjames slid his hand round to grab Crozier’s bottom, I felt at once a prick of jealousy and a yet sharper prick of lust, and fancied I understood at least dimly why Crozier had wanted this. I recall thinking in that moment that if I had either a Crozier or Fitzjames of my own, I would guard him most jealously, and something in this thought gave me a sort of dull and lonely pang. For I had long loved the one and desired the other, and now those longings—alike in intensity though not in character—were to be paid back to me in parts, in imperfect fragments. But thankfully this melancholy reverie was but a brief one, for Crozier then stepped back from Fitzjames—I watched his callused fingertips skate along his forearm toward his wrist as they parted; most tender are those gestures that seem so incidental—and gestured toward his bed cabin. He did this with a stiff, small smile and a little bow, as a butler might.</p><p>Fitzjames laid back on the bed, propped up on his elbows so that his nipples were tugged completely free of the neck line of his gown. His skirts had slid up over one cocked knee; my gaze traveling the shadow interior that knee I fancied I could discern among the seafoam folds at his waist the tenting if his yard. (He wore no small clothes, of that I was at least certain). It was another such moment that the strangeness of the situation, the giddying topsy-turvy of it—the captain turned butler outside his own bed as his steward crawled in to warm his lover. I disrobed to my waistcoat and sleeves, which I rolled up out of habit (is there anything worse than dingy or wet cuffs menacing one’s wrists?) and crawled astride him. I glanced up at Crozier again to make sure I was doing what was expected, though what exactly that was, not one of us was certain. We had discussed the <i>rules of play</i> in loose generalities on an evening prior; expectations had been sketched out and boundaries delineated. But I felt then like a man given a map upon which a destination has been marked in a great red x and little else—no roads, no compass. </p><p>Crozier raised his eyebrows and tilted his brow incrementally forward. <i>Go on.</i></p><p>Fitzjames shook his head and laughed softly before reaching for me, pulling me down so my face rested in the hollow of his neck; as he spoke I felt the sonorous rumble of his voice like the thrum of a fever in my ear and cheek. “Jopson,” he murmured, his hands soft in my hair, “I do hope you know how magnificent you are.”</p><p>“Thank you—sir?” Then he and Crozier both laughed; it was somehow at my expense but fond, and so I smiled too. It next felt appropriate to nuzzle at him and kiss him about the throat and collar and so I did so; as I pressed my lips to where his pulse beat at the curve of his jaw I...I smelled Crozier there, a scent nearly phantom in its faintness but unmistakable; with tooth and tongue I followed that thread and with rising blood found it led to (and ended at) Fitzjames’ breast. I spied then, upon closer inspection, faint little pink marks and soft bruises—watercolor strokes of yellow and gray against the cream of his flesh where Crozier had ventured before me. </p><p>I raised my head and taunted lightly—as I’d been instructed to do—“is this, ah, your handiwork, sir?”</p><p>Crozier nodded; his face was mask-like but his eyes had a soft, hungry kind of darkness in them. </p><p>“Light little marks, sir,” I continued, my heart pounding in my throat but my tone and countenance externally collected. “Can’t you bite any harder?”</p><p>“Paint over them,” Fitzjames murmured in my ear. “Mark me as your own.”</p><p><i>I mustn’t look to him for permission,</i> I reminded myself as my gaze instinctively sought Crozier’s. For this was part of it: Crozier likened it to staging <i>a little play</i> in which he is bettered by another in the matter of bedding his mate, replete with taunting and unkind words. I warned him that such behavior would not come at all naturally to me, but found now—seeing the queer effect it had had on them both, as well as the baffling, yet not insignificant, effect it had upon my own manhood—redoubled my dedication to my role. I lowered my mouth to Fitzjames’ nipple and—Christ, my tongue barely grazed it and he violently canted his hips up to meet mine, and gasped in a strangled, pretty kind of way. </p><p>“Tender,” Fitzjames panted.</p><p>“I worked him over for you,” Crozier said in the timidly proud tone of a ship’s boy groping for praise. I eyed him with what I hoped was apathy—perhaps even feigning some irritation at being interrupted. My gaze raked down his body—paused, retraced their steps—and came to rest an unnecessary moment too long on the arc of hardened flesh straining against Crozier’s britches. Abashed by my gaze, he made to cross his legs over so his knee and thigh obscured the view. </p><p>“No, Francis, let us see.” Fitzjames purred. “Let us see how hard it’s made you to watch me with another man.” He gave something like a smile, though it reminded me in truth of a dog’s snarl. “One younger—and handsomer by far. And his cock—did you see it, Francis? I might have choked.” He addressed himself to me. “I’ve <i>never</i> had that trouble with <i>his</i>.”</p><p>“James.” A plea—for what I could not say. I was about to speak, to protest that I would not do anything to wound my captain’s heart <i>in earnest</i> but then Crozier indeed unlaced himself—tentative he was, his cheeks red. His eyes lowered. An act of contrition, it seemed to be, but he was playing along. “Get on with it,” he rasped. </p><p>I looked down at Fitzjames again—Christ, he was beautiful. I pinned his wrists between my knees and the wadded plumes of his skirts, and lowered my mouth once again to his nipple, coordinating a soft nip of the one with a cruel twist of the other between my thumb and the crooked knuckle of my forefinger. He jerked violently against me, a guttural moan forced from between his parted lips. I bit harder, then at the point of what should’ve been discomfort—<i>discomfort</i> being, I know now, a matter entirely subject to personal and perverse whim; and therefore what I mean is I bit down to the extent which I myself would have permitted for my own self, built as I am of tenderer stuff than they. This is not to say I did not take a surprising amount of pleasure and pride in the subsequent administration of such pretty little hurts: both Crozier and Fitzjames seemed pleased and thus I was as well. </p><p>Additionally, the corset and scrap of blue lace masquerading as a neckline up top had, in the tussle and twist of things, been worked some way down his torso, revealing shallow reddish indentations where the boning had bit into his flesh. Is there no end to the means—nor indeed to the specificity of the means—by which our bodies are surprised with pleasure, with beauty? A sort of serendipity, is it not, to not even regard one way or another the mark left by corsetry upon the flesh of another; I mean, truly, <i>not once</i> in your life do you contemplate it—and then it is sprung upon you, calling to mind lash marks, furrowed fields, the trails left by another lover’s fingernails? And you can scarcely breathe for the beauty of it, the astonishment? In these moments the world is at once as vast as the vaulted heavens and as close, as intimate, as a cupped fist.These indentations too were exquisitely tender and so to them I administered a constellation of sharp little kisses, sure to bruise prettily. </p><p>“Please, Thomas,” Fitzjames pleaded then. “I’ll go mad if you don’t—“</p><p>“He can go madder than this,” Crozier advised me, speaking as though Fitzjames weren’t there. “It’s—you’ve never seen the like.” He leaned forward, his gaze intense. Each word he enunciated with equal emphasis, tapping his finger rhythmically on the arm of the chair. “You must make him <i>beg</i>.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Chapter 3</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It was furnace-hot beneath Fitzjames’ skirts; I could smell the musk of his body—the chill staleness of cloth out of long storage—the doughy bloom of arousal—and, most captivatingly, an underlying drift of... violet and vetiver, I believe—some scented toiletry hoarded, meted out for occasions of intimacy. It was invigorating to scent something new, as accustomed as I was to a rote set of odors: black tea, old sweat, the scorching lilt of whiskey. Mildew in the boards of the ship, ice—which you would not think to have a scent of its own, being simply hardened water, but it does. It’s a sort of tinny, scrubbed sweetness, discernible only in the absence of other smells. I kept turning my head this way and that, breathing deeply as I kissed and licked my way around his thighs and hips, orbiting teasingly near—but not touching—that which he kept asking, pleading with me, to touch. </p><p>Equally invigorating was his—well, his bareness. He had been expertly shaven! The image of my bookish co-steward Bridgens performing such a task was a comical one; I reasoned then that Crozier must have been the man for this task if for no other reason than that Harry Peglar would not have taken kindly to such a task falling to his John. The result, regardless of who wielded the blade, was that his skin was most silken and almost feverish hot to the touch. Idly, as though by mistake, I took hold of him with one hand. I stroked him loosely, and in the same moment did seize with a sharp nip at the sleek dip where thigh joins pelvis.</p><p>“<i>Oh, </i>yes,” he said from above, his voice muffled, but also, “more.”</p><p>“Which is it, sir?” I queried as I emerged from beneath his skirts. I did not wish to be hurried, for I have always been hurried in these matters. In alley ways, malodorous rented rooms, beneath docks—carried out in hushed and fumbling haste, it had always been, in the dark and at odd hours, as though we conspired not at pleasure but at treason. I feared then, there in the captain’s berth, no footfall on the stair, no swaying beam from a bobbie’s lantern. No—I would not be rushed, and I (politely) told him so. </p><p>And besides, he wasn’t exactly suffering. He lay on his back, his skirts billowing about him like a cloud of perfume made visible, his breath coming in soft pants from between teeth parted in a quiet, dreamy smile. I continued to stroke him softly, admiring his colour of flushed rose and the velvety heft of him in my palm. When I relinquished my grip just in order to once again unlace myself (for my placket had grown uncomfortably snug) he went to take himself in hand, as though to finish what I had begun! The cheek! I gently took him by the wrist, shook my head. Fitzjames’ eyes turned hard.</p><p>“I am sure he aims to make it up to you... don’t you lad?” Crozier’s voice was musically teasing as he languidly pulled at himself. I nodded and lowered my mouth to Fitzjames’ waist; whilst simultaneously toying with one nipple I commenced to kiss the naked insides of his thighs, drawing ever closer to his— then I raised my head and asked, “is it—ah, more sensitive, sir? Being clean-shaven?”</p><p>“It is... most pleasant. Please, would you just—“</p><p>“If I were to do <i>this</i>—“ I slid my fingers down the ruched, shallow seam between his stones; he rutted into empty air and gasped—“would you feel more pleasure than the captain would if I did the same to him?” I heard Crozier’s breath catch and glanced up at him from between Fitzjames’ spread thighs, his skirts mounded up over his belly and chest. He was pleasuring himself in earnest now, his tongue pressed against the gap between his front teeth—a gap with which, incidentally, I am inexplicably enamored; when he grins with genuine mirth and that gap is made visible, it... stirs me. “And this?” I queried, not breaking eye contact as I laved with the flat of my tongue a languid line from root to glans. </p><p>Fitzjames’ hand alighted in my hair like a little bird. “Francis,” he growled from between clenched teeth, “he’s terrible.”</p><p>“You deserve it,” Crozier answered serenely, his gaze still heavy on me. I wondered if he was imagining my mouth upon <i>him</i> instead, just as I had imagined the same innumerable times in the dark of my bed, his face contorted in ecstasy as I knelt before him—</p><p>“Easy for you to say, there in your little chair, frigging yourself like—oh, <i>fuck</i>, Thomas,” here Fitzjames gasped as I tensed my lips into a perfect <i>o</i> and commenced to work them with a dreamy and distracted slowness down his length. I did not draw my eyes away from Crozier this whole time: how handsome he was, how—even in this moment of vulnerability—commanding; the brute strength coiled and twitching minutely in his bared, lightly furred forearm as he rode his fist. </p><p>“At any rate,” Fitzjames managed—gasped—“you ought to slow your pace, old man.” Crozier seemed at first not to have heard, as intent as he was on watching me, but indeed he slowed a bit—loosened his grip—leaned back. “Although I suppose a man of your age, with your particular... <i>ailment</i>... must make hay while the sun shines,” Fitzjames continued coolly. </p><p>“What a brat you are, James.” But there was no venom in his voice: it was nearly fond, affectionate. “You are both... together like that... Christ, I’ve not the words for it.” These words filled my chest and cheeks with heat as certain as though I sat before a crackling hearth: not just heat of the body but of the spirit. I felt—at home, somehow, held gently between Fitzjames’ thighs by the weight of Crozier’s gaze. This coziness of belonging in conjunction with the impatient blaze of my body, the heightened sensitivity of all my flesh, all conspired to make me feel uncomfortably warm. I sat up onto my knees and stripped myself of waistcoat and shirtsleeves. I was further warmed by a heady commingling of pride and cringing bashfulness; both men watched with naked hunger in their eyes that which I usually do alone in the dark. Fitzjames chewed the inside of his cheek as he reached up to run his fingers lightly along my side. “Christ, Francis,” he breathed.</p><p>“I know it, James.” </p><p>I looked down the plane of my body, trying to see myself as they must have, but I saw only myself—that is, nothing of particular remark. Thin, I felt; my muscles not nearly as sharply chiseled as I would’ve liked. A light feathering of hair across my chest, another trailing from my navel down, thickening into the—at least next to Fitzjames’ smoothness—embarrassingly thick nest of black curls from which my prick (which I own, as a mere matter of fact, to be rather more generous in size than average) eagerly sprang. I glanced then between the two of them. “All right then, sirs?” </p><p>“<i>All right</i>?” Crozier muttered. “Christ, lad, you’re—“</p><p>“A David,” Fitzjames finished.</p><p>“Hardly, sir, but thank you all the same.” </p><p>This was one of the points at which Crozier made as though to rise from his chair. What he intended to do I know not, and so afire was I for the older man’s touch—even if just a trace of a touch, even if for a mere instant of time—that I could not protest as I was most likely supposed to. Fitzjames, however, was ready: “Down, Francis,” he warned in dark tones. “Or shall we move your chair?” He looked down at me. “What are your thoughts, Jopson?”</p><p>I could not bear the thought of him being any further away. And I did <i>so</i>want to please them both. “Let him stay,” I said to Fitzjames. “I am sure he will be good.” I turned to Crozier and, with what I hoped desperately would pass for sternness, asked him, “You <i>will</i> be good, won’t you? And keep those little hands to yourself while I take what’s yours?” </p><p>His nostrils flared and something dangerous flashed in his eyes but he nodded. “Yes,” he said, in a soft tone that might have implied bitterness—or lust—or both. “I’ll be good.” </p><p>And so I bowed again between Fitzjames’ thighs. I have always been able to bring a man off swiftly with my mouth, a task that requires (let us be honest) no significant amount of skill: one simply makes a cunny of one’s mouth, a home snug and wet. Seeing, however, as a swift escalation and conclusion was not at this juncture desirable, another idea seized me. Now, Fitzjames is a man known for his fastidiousness, both in appearance and in hygiene, and I perceived then and there the welcome opportunity to carry out <i>a certain act</i> of which I am very fond and (if I may flatter myself) at which I have been told I am exquisitely skilled, but from which I am often discouraged by a lack of precisely what Fitzjames possessed in abundance—that is, of hygienic fastidiousness. A frisson of anticipatory delight ran through me as I lowered my mouth to Fitzjames’ entrance.</p><p>“Oh,” he moaned, his voice as sweet and rich as port wine, “<i>oh</i>. Christ, Francis, he’s—actually...”</p><p>“I can see that, James,” Crozier replied archly. “How does it feel?”</p><p>“It’s... nnf... Christ, Francis—I’m not feeling particularly—<i>oh</i>—articulate—just now—“</p><p>“So <i>this</i> what it takes to shut him up? I do hope you give lessons.”</p><p>“You could—<i>ah—</i>use some—“</p><p>There was no venom in their banter now, though, to be fair, there was indeed little banter to be had: Fitzjames’ capacity for speech was at that point quite impaired. I closed my eyes so as to widen the scope of my other senses: each movement of his body beneath my ministrations I perceived, from the intermittent, minute  flexing of his thighs to the soft rhythmic tightening and loosening of his fingers in my hair (almost as though he were stroking me like a favorite house cat, an idea I liked <i>very much</i>) to the erratic pistoning of his hips. I slid my arms beneath to both lift him closer and stabilize him; he took this opportunity to shift a bit of his weight up onto my shoulders so that I was a holding him slightly aloft. This most advantageous position (agreed upon and arrived at by the both of us with the unthinking knowingness of gears in clockwork) increased the pressure upon, and therefore the reach of, my tongue. </p><p>Not, of course, that one can just go... inserting it. One must first tease—circle, flick. Then lave broad trails, one’s tongue firmly flat, dripping. One must insist. Slowly, at first, though ardently (always ardently). Surrender to the untidiness of it, one’s own chin soaked slick and one’s cheeks too, the hinges of one’s lips stretched taut. Then  quicker. Tense one’s tongue to a point, press. By now he should be beginning to bloom, to open. Like one’s mouth is the sun. By the time I was able to actually slip my tongue into the loosening ring of muscle, Fitzjames had begun to beg in earnest. I had had to twice entreat him to keep his hands from his prick, and suggested rather strongly to Crozier that he do the same. I did not want either of them to bring themselves to completion prematurely; there was something of an itinerary to be followed. </p><p>“Please, please, <i>please</i>,” he was pleading, his voice husky and rhythmic. It was almost like a holy incantation. At last I did attain the goal I had set for myself: I finally managed to sheathe my tongue far enough in that with it I was able to simulate the act of intercourse. At this juncture his <i>please</i>s disintegrated into a repeated, panting keening—I’d never heard the like! But my jaw began to ache and I supposed we must move on with the proceedings at any rate, though I felt quite content where I was and made a mental note to somehow strengthen my tongue and jaw so as to extend my stamina in this particular act. How he whined at the sudden absence of my mouth—like a lonesome pup! Such overriding pity did I feel for him that I instantly replaced my tongue with my forefinger, and then my middle. They slipped in quite effortlessly and I told him so.</p><p>“You’ll find he’s quite accommodating,” Crozier noted behind me. “Astonishingly so. I sometimes ask him if he couldn’t take—I shouldn’t say it. Make Jopson blush.”</p><p>“Oh, say it, Francis—it was your disgusting idea to start with.”</p><p>“Well. I think he wouldn’t mind if I shared him with the whole crew, ‘specially gussied up so—set his hair in perfect little curls—put those stockings on—line ‘em up by rank. Ships’ boys first, mm? You’d like that, wouldn’t you, James? Could sail the Erebus clean through you by the time we’re all done.”</p><p>I actually gasped at that. I’m no lad myself but such language twisted in my gut like a boxer’s fist. I suppose I must harbor some fantasies more perverse than others, but so deeply are they submerged within my secret heart that I could not confess them if I wanted to. The proceedings at hand, as a matter of fact, so surpassed in elaborateness anything I had ever dreamed up for myself that the possibility of a scenario filthier and more extravagant was dizzying to me. Compelling, too, and a bit stomach churning—not unlike whiskey in that way; not unlike Crozier.</p><p>“See? We’ve made him blush.” </p><p>“<i>You’ve</i> made him blush, you nasty man—you vile pederast—you should be lashed for your imaginings, and I’ll not encourage them—“</p><p>I cut this dialogue off with the insertion of my ring finger and a vicious twist. His prick jerked and he cried out—<i>there</i> it was, the prize I sought. “Again,” he gasped; I did as asked. Again I did it, and again, marveling at the spectrum of increasingly desperate sounds my fingers wrung from him until he at last cried out, “more, please, I need—more—“</p><p>“More what, sir?”</p><p>He stilled and the muscles along his jaw twitched minutely. “You know damned well what I want.”</p><p>I looked at Crozier, feigning puzzlement. He quirked one brow roguishly and shrugged.</p><p>But I did not, at that point, wish to play games. <i>Crozier can extract all the pleas he wants on his own time,</i> I thought to myself. And I did not think he would mind—after all, I was meant to do with Fitzjames whatever I deemed fit, in whichsoever manner pleased me. So I gradually slowed my fingers and drew them out. “Hands and knees, sir,” I said in as affable a tone as I could manage, patting him lightly on the hip with my palm. I aligned myself ever so carefully and worked my way in. </p><p>Crozier uncrossed his legs and leaned forward. I looked at him and described what I could: “He’s—tight, sir, but—ah—there’s no resistance. Perfect.” I had to close my eyes and root myself in my own breath. I envisioned lungs spreading open, contracting, like palms moving from supplication to prayer. As long as I had been preoccupied with service of one kind or another—no matter how pleasurable the provision of that service had been—I had disregarded my own want. Now it was thrust fore and center, and I craved to—it was a greedy and unreasonable want, not at all gentle—I craved to seize Fitzjames by his hips, his dark and gleaming hair; I wanted to rend his skirts to rags with my teeth. Not out of anger, mind you; I did not wish to harm nor subjugate him—I only wished to visit upon his body the ineffable force of my want even as I strove to slake it. So I talked my way through it, eyes shut: “I—want to mark him, sir—he’s beautiful, he <i>feels</i> beautiful; sir, how can you bear to share him? I’d keep him under lock and key if he were mine—and pleasure him daily til he wept—til he was hoarse from screaming—“</p><p>“Christ,” Fitzjames murmured from beneath me. “Imagine it, Francis—who’d suck your cock then?”</p><p>I locked eyes with Crozier, dragged myself out near to the top, then slammed in again. Fitzjames arched his back and gasped. Crozier’s round, rugged face blazed red and he was pulling at himself furiously, carelessly. “You’d still suck it if you wished, sir,” I said to Fitzjames, unable to tear my eyes from Crozier—good Christ, that he could come closer—touch us, touch <i>me</i>— “—but only after you’d sucked mine.” I reached forth and hooked my finger round the hinge of his jaw, hooking my fingertip into the velveteen interior of his cheek. “So he’d know this mouth wasn’t his anymore.” With the same hand I hiked his skirt up further and ran my fingers over his ass, a surprisingly muscular one for so slender a creature. </p><p>“Would you like that, Francis, dear? To watch me bring him off with my mouth? I’d keep his spend in my mouth for you, so that when we kissed—when we kissed—“</p><p>“Christ,” Francis muttered. “Christ, I’m getting near—“</p><p>“Don’t you fucking <i>dare</i>, old man,” Fitzjames spat. “Not yet—Jopson, lend me a hand—“</p><p>“James, I’m—tell me how he feels, James. Inside of you. Is he good?”</p><p>“He is <i>exquisite</i>, Francis. His cock is—incredible; I feel so full—do you know, darling, how long it’s been since I’ve felt this full? If I were his—I’d keep myself ready for him—you could help prepare me, Francis, with those little fingers of yours—be good for something—“</p><p>I could feel my own crisis approaching, not because I really wished for any of the things they spoke of but because Crozier was in such ecstasy; he writhed against himself, eyes half-shut—the knowledge that the sight of me taking my pleasure in Fitzjames’ magnificent body amplified Crozier’s was—was—I hadn’t the words for it. I seized a fistful of Fitzjames’ hair, staring hard into Crozier’s eyes as I did so. “He is mine now,” I said, smiling softly. “Do you understand, Francis? Mine.”</p><p>Crozier’s mouth fell open and his gaze went soft, distant. He gave one last decisive buck into his own fist and then he was spending, not with a cry or a moan but with a beautiful, animalistic little grunt as his jism arced forth. Most of it landed on the floor between the chair and the berth’s open door. I recall thinking of how I’d be the one to clean it up when we were finished, on my hands and knees with a rag—and it was this, in cosmically-timed conjunction with Crozier’s face relaxing into a smile—that wondrous gap—and with scarcely a chance to warn Fitzjames I too let go, riding the rising molten tide from the core of my own body into Fitzjames’. Then for a dilation of time—seconds? Minutes?—I thought of nothing. I was warm, soft, oblivious: I <i>was</i> nothing: a more euphoric <i>nothing</i> there never was.</p><p>“Sit up, love,” Crozier’s brogue elbowed into my consciousness and softly I opened my eyes. He had risen from his chair (we were finished, I sensed, with our <i>little play</i>) and was shouldering in a little space for himself on the bed. I slipped from Fitzjames’ body but did not let go his prick, and watched in wonder and soft pleasure as Crozier bowed before him, lowering his mouth onto him. I slid my own hand down to lightly palpate Fitzjames’ stones; I gasped as Crozier’s lips brushed my fingers in his work. He—<i>we</i>—had been at this work for less than a minute before Fitzjames shuddered out his bliss between us, his head thrown back against me and his long, elegant hands resting in Crozier’s hair. Two shades of flame.</p><p>———</p><p>To this day I do not recall how we managed to clean ourselves; nor can I recollect how we arrayed our limbs so as to comfortably rest our exhausted bodies. It was all done in such soft voices, each of us disposed with utmost felicity of thought toward the others. It was quite natural to nest together, shut our eyes, and cast off, as we did, into a shared repose—a slumber soft and boundless.</p>
  </div></div>
</body>
</html>